June 09, 2006

Verbing your way into the history books

Here's an interesting article about some nut-job who is campaigning to get "concept", used as a verb, into the dictionaries. This by way of Language Log.

Both articles make some good points about language snobbery (something LL always stands ready to combat).

While trawling around Slate I also found this article, on a topic we debated ages ago -- or was that The Scottish Newsgroup?

And while looking for that thread I found this old post of mine which makes an interesting point about how the lore of copy editors is employed to distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate.

Posted by Alan Hogue at June 9, 2006 07:51 PM
Comments

Thanks for these, Alan. I hadn't read the dictionary review before, and really enjoyed it.

Posted by: Ben Brumfield at June 12, 2006 03:51 PM